Good News & Bad News
Monday’s Laconia Daily Sun carried a story headlined, “New Hampshire residents pay least local taxes nationally.” The article, reporting on a recent study of 2004 US Census economic data, is at the same time both good news and bad news.
The good news is just what the article reports: “New Hampshire residents pay less of their income in state and local taxes than people living elsewhere in the country.” The economist who calculated and compared tax burdens in all the states noted the NH results are “an indication the state is very frugal and tries to do a lot without the same resources other states have for revenue.”
Unfortunately, the bad news is that the big spenders populating NH’s governing bodies both locally and at the state level continue to grow in power. The report showing NH’s “frugality” leaving more dollars in the wallets of working folks will simply be seen by them as some future “revenue stream” to be tapped. “Besides,” they’ll tell us, “It’s not fair that people in New Jersey and Massachusetts and Alaska pay much more than we do here in the Granite State.”
As government bureaucracies at all levels continue to grow at an ever-quickening pace, we must always be vigilant against the taking of our distinct “NH Advantage”- despite the current good news. The minute the folks drop their guard, it will be gone. The fact that we are taxed lower than everybody else doesn’t mean we aren’t overtaxed all the same.
